Review: Nainen ja anjovis

COFFEE BUYING JOURNEY AND OTHER SENSITIVE STORIES
The Nopola evening packed into the foyer is more than worth the ticket price

Heidi Herala is cooking sausage soup on stage and quickly asks, glancing at the audience: “How does this feel, is it worth paying for this?”
“It feels like home,” comes the immediate answer from the middle of the crowded Studio Pasila foyer.
A small moment in the middle of a small side path of the performance sums up the atmosphere of the evening, which is compiled from Sinikka Nopola’s texts.
Heidi Herala, who already used Nopola’s texts in her one-woman performance Lainapeite ja korttavaraa, is such an apt person to present laconic absurd humour stemming from her everyday observations, and also such a precise and flexible actress that she manages to look almost like the author herself on stage.
The actor’s sideshot to the audience ties the characters of Nopola’s small stories together well. They are careful about money, themselves and other people’s opinions.

The evening compiled by Herala includes stories that have already become small classics, such as Eila’s and Rampe’s coffee buying trip, but also new material.
The title story The Woman and the Anchovies expands the theme of independent and lonely women by introducing motherhood. The jar of anchovies that has been sitting in the cupboard for the summer, with only broth inside, grows into a strong metaphor for the feelings of a mother who watches her son come of age.

The most impressive thing about the performance is that in addition to humour, Herala also finds room for sensitivity, which is allowed to radiate from the stage without any sensitivity.
And he is not alone on stage this time, he is supported by the actor’s own son Lauri Maijala, who accompanies the performance with various instruments and small characters.
Tickets for the woman and anchovies cost 19 euros. It’s probably worth paying, even though Studio Pasila’s narrow and flat-floored foyer is not a space worth performing.